WELLSVILLE, N. Y., INSTITUTE.
By B. L. WHITNEY
This meeting closed Sunday evening, Feb. 9, having continued two weeks and two days, including our State tract society quarterly meeting with which the exercises commenced. During this time there were held forty-five regular meetings of the Institute, the greater share of which were each two hours in length. Besides these, there were regular prayer and conference meetings each day, and thirteen sermons were preached during the session. Notwithstanding the fact that so many meetings were held, the interest continued good to the last, the steady and constant application of so many unaccustomed to study being one of the remarkable features of the Institute. The work was divided into five departments,—the tract society, the Conference, the Sabbath-school, the musical department, and the department for parliamentary practice. For each of these departments an instructor was appointed, who had the general charge and responsibility of the exercises for the time assigned to his department. In the tract society department the Institute was organized into five districts, each having its director and district secretary, and being composed of three church societies with their librarians and membership. All the regular transactions of business, drawing publications, distributing tracts, obtaining subscribers for periodicals, writing letters, making reports, etc., etc., were carried out as actual transactions, while at the same time instruction concerning the method of keeping the proper accounts was given so that the business might be done in a systematic and thorough manner. In the Conference department the entire membership was organized into churches, for which the proper officers were elected. Proper records of the organization were made by each church clerk; the regular church quarterly meetings were held, in which all the business pertaining to such meetings was transacted, including the payment of the tithes and one-third, receiving members, granting letters, etc., in fact, all the business actually occurring in our regular church work. Minute instructions were given on all these points, which were illustrated and enforced by the actual practice had in connection therewith. In the S. S. department the entire Institute was organized into a school, after full instruction had been given as to how this should be done, and a practical illustration had been afforded by organizing schools in each district. It is to be hoped that this instruction, with the practical illustration of how the work should be done, will prove of great benefit to the work in this new Conference in establishing that order and system that should be seen in all these departments of the work of God. The visit of Eld. J. N. Andrews during the last days of the session, will, we trust, prove a lasting blessing to those who were present. His earnest appeals to those who are engaged in the work to become possessed of the true missionary spirit were not without effect on the hearts of those who heard them, and we trust that our Institute will not prove a failure in this important particular, but that the work among us will be marked by more of that real spirit of zeal and devotion that should characterize so important a work as that in which we are engaged. The brethren separated to go to their homes with a good degree of courage and determination to carry out the instruction they had received, and to labor earnestly to build up the work of God in our midst, and wherever their influence may reach. B. L. WHITNEY.